Avant Garde Noise Rock Jazz Artist Elena Bella Sonzeezy Turns One Year Old Today!Southside of Norge The Realest - Boyzinadaze to the Infinity

That's right, my favorite free jazz vocalist pioneer Elena Bella has turned one year old today. Man, it seems like just yesterday that we were in that hospital room waiting for her to arrive. I remember that my boy Chris Lemon Red posted the first photos of her on the Hollerboard just minutes after her arrival and well.... I haven't slept since... But it's not all her fault, it's my crazy head. Really it is.


So today in celebration, we went to the beach. Both her and her sister DJ Eva are serious water heads so the beach was the obvious choice.


Never mind that the sand looked like a Nascar track, the water looked like a mudjack and every 30 minutes or so the unbearable smell of rotten eggs would wash over our heads. We still had fun. I'm red like a lobster.


Grandma won the um, present contest if there ever was one. I never saw this girl get so excited as she got when she first climbed onto her new Winnie the Pooh Bubble Train. Wow.


This thing is fuckin' loud, but you know, anything for the children.

You got something to say about that anonymous?
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Otay buttwheat now back to the rap portion of tonights program. Last week you probably read my barely coherent post about how I got this last minute call to bring Devin the Dude to the Quart Festival in Norway and well, shit, here's the wrap up.

Peep this. In a nutshell we got to Kristiansand, Norway Tuesday afternoon. Devin performed Tuesday Night. Went on a boat Wednesday day. Slim Thug and Kanye West performed Wednesday night. Thursday Rapid Ric, Slim Thug, PJ of Boss Hogg Outlawz and myself went to Amsterdam. Friday Bun arrived in Amsterdam. Friday night we did radio. Saturday, Bun, International Red, Security Guard Truck and myself went back to Kristiansand and Bun B performed that night. I'lll fill in the gaps below, but there's a lil time line fo dat ass.

Grab you a cold one this shit is long.


Not sure if this is the best place to start as this was a bit into the night on Tuesday. My day was kind of fucked. I left Houston at 3 p.m. on Monday and flew to Newark. When I got to Newark I was informed that my plane to Amsterdam was 3 hours late, which was going to cause me to miss my flight to Kristiansand and ultimately sit in the Amsterdam airport for 8 hours. So after spazzing out a bit on a bunch of motherfuckers asses in the airport I went and got some dinner and had about 5 beers and finally borded the plane trying to forget what was about to go down.

The plane ride, a good 7 hours, was fine. I basically played solitaire on the little screen in the seat and listened to every Radiohead album in my iPod and landed in Amsterdam in the morning. Upon arrival I cut on my cell phone and there was a message from Ric saying "The plane is delayed fool hurry up you can get on." So I ran like a maiac through Schipol, made it through customs with no hassle and got to the desk where I was informed that they would not let me on no way no how. I got on the phone with Ric again and Ric asked the pilot to let his friend on and the pilot said sure.

They even sent a lady out to get me but the bitch at the desk wouldn't let me on the plane. She was like the ultimate gate keeper. So... to make a long story short, the plane we were all supposed to be on had some troubles so it was delayed. Devin and Ric switched planes TWICE before actually taking off, all while I stood at the window at the airport unable to get on. I'm serious, for almost an hour I argued to let me on the plane. In this hour, they got on 3 different planes. They could have let me on, but they didn't. So whatever, so uninteresting just suffice it to say it was a shitty start to a great trip. In the photo above that's Mira Craig - the biggest r&b artist in Scandanavia (born in Baton Rouge, LA she is half Norwegian and half African American.), dark haired lady is real cool but I only met her once and don't remember her name, blonde is Mona B THE GREATEST TV PRESENTER IN AL OF NORGE and myself. We're standing in a pizza shop where I bought a pizza for $30 and ate it for 2 days.


Said dark haired woman in the very brief moon light. Throwed thing about Norway is this time of year it gets dark around 11:30 p.m. then light again at 3:30 a.m. So when you are partying festival style, the day never really ends and wow... It's a really weird feeling.


Mira Craig.

OK So basically I got in so late I didn't have much time to do shit but have a drink, get a pizza, handle sound check and go to the show so on to show time.


Julia and Jeanette - One cool thing about the Quart Festival out of many cool things is that they assign a "band contact" to each artist on the festival each day. So you have someone you can call when you need a ride to the venue or have any problems. These lovely ladies were assigned to us. Very cool and we thank you for Momming us the whole time.


Lady A met us from Oslo, she is a writer/promoter who we met in Aarhus last year and she brought a bunch of friends and a seemingly unending supply of hash doobs. Man.


DJ A-Trak is on tour doing the festival circuit with Kanye West this summer so we got to hook up with him again. Always a pleasure sir. Shit, we had some good friends popping in and out of our lives all week. Shit was awesome. Seen here with Devin but you alreayd knew that.


Devin and Leela James. When I say Leela James ripped it, I am understating the whole situation totally. One of her back up singers is from Houston even.


Devin ripped it in front of like 2000 people. On some last minute shit booked aorund the world one week in advance shit he still had legions of people on his ass like "THE DUDE YOU ARE MY FAVORITE RAPPER EVER I HAVE WAITED ALL MY LIFE TO SEE YOU COME SMOKE THIS BEST WEED IN THE WORLD WITH ME)." Thank you.






Peep how it go down.






And after the show, as always, he meets his fans. Look out for all this exclusive footage on HoustonSoReal On The Road Volume 1 DVD in September.


Kanye West was on the side of the stage for the whole Devin show. Dude was crazy nice man. Crazy nice. It was a serious pleasure to finally meet dude.




After the show we went back to the hotel to watch the sun rise at 3:30 a.m. Here's Rapid Ric and Devin watching drunk Norwegians fall down in the street. For real.

Then Wednesday, after going to bed at 5:30, Rapid Ric called me at 9:45 to tell me to meet him for breakfast. I slammed the phone down on his ass then realized that shit in Norway literally costs like 10 times more than anywhere else and I figured that if I was gonna eat it had to be now so I got up and then me and Ric headed to the beach. See, Kristiansand is on the south side of Norway, right on the sea. And they have a beach. A small one, but it's filled with people who look as though they were carved perfectly by God and placed there in a thousand dollar bathing suit. Anyway, my fat ass and Rics crazy ass jumped in the freezing waters of Norway at like 10 am that day and really set our day off. Then Mona and the fine folsk at NRK TV took us on a boat trip...


Imagine going on a small, wooden, traditional Norwegian boat ride to an island with Slim Thug, Devin the Dude, A-Track, big Norwegian TV stars, Mira Craig and posse. It's ill man. Peep it.


Boss Hogg Outlawz immediately secured their spot on the block. They held that hill down.


Leif filmed everything for a Houston documentary they are doing out there. They have already been here and to SXSW.


A-Trak and crew. If I wasn't such a wastoid I'd remember everyones names but for now lets just say dude on the left is the tour barber for Kanye y company and girl on the right is the most radically energetic backup singer I ever saw in my life. Kanyes show is like the best thing to ever happen to hip hop and I am not exaggerating.


So all kinds of shit happened in the two hours we were on the boat. Fools jumped off cliffs. Dudes pulled jellyfish out the water with their hands. We barbecued. And well this little lady pulled fresh mussles from the sea and put em on the grill. Those are live mussels in her hand. Soon to be dead and eaten by DJ A-Trizz. Not me.


BHO owned that whole island by the end of the day.


Self-explanatory.


Me and Slim we ain't trippin', like Do or Die I'm po' pimpin'. reppin' the Heights.


Mira Craig and Devin the Dude


Mira Craig and friends much prettier than Devin the Dude


Mona B. is like SoReal! For real. She is the host of a huge music show over there on TV and she is hosting this Houston special and like, knows more than me about this fuckin' town. It's insane. Here she is spazzing out.


Slim and PJ, Boss Hogg Outlawz


Some of Mira's fans came over and hollered at her. Seriously, she's big over there.


So I had to get some shots.


Here's them jellyfish I was talking about. They were everywhere. Needless to say I didn't swim out ther.e




Back in the water. Note: No Jellyfish were hurt in the making of this blog.


They didn't catch shit but man they had a good time.


Faux-Rill


Ida is down with Mira


DJ Hercules was the first to jump off the cliff (see it on the DVD in Sept. fool) and here he is walking on a board. Dude is WAY up on the south too.


I took this one for you my friend.


Then we headed back and I rode on the bow of the boat. So fuckin' dope. On the way in we passed a huge party boat that was blasting Chamillionaire's "Ridin'" super loud.


And when we got off the boat Devin and Slim were met by some fans.







Later that evening it was showtime for Slim Thug. Ric was to man the decks for him too, but um, when we got there, we realized that SLim's show disc was blank! So Ric got on and spun a 30 minute set of nothing but Texas shit for them fools.


I shit you not when I say at least half the crowd was singing along to Lil Keke's "Southside." For real.


Then Slim ripped that fuckin' shit. He opened for Kanye so had a HUGE crowd. People knew every word man, every word.










After Slim's set Mona introduced me to Toffen, the curator of the whole festival. Thank you Toffen. Hands off to you for real. We will come back anytime you want us. Wow.


Jeanette and Leif-O aka Bad Bad Leroy Brown From Downtown


I didn't even try to fight the legions of press photogs for a good photo of Kanye live. I just stayed back and took a coupel like this. Yo for real though, dude is a showman and if I was the president I would make it a law for every rapper in existence to see his show and step their lazy little bullshit ghetto not knowing nothing ass motherfucking game up for fucking real. Thank you Kanye for being you.


We kicked it backstage for a while smoking and drinking and watching world cup action with my peoples DJ Frampster and Lady Sovereign. These folks coming to Houston sooner than you think. Big show at Meridian and special hang session with your peoples at a certain huge event I have coming up and well... more on that later.


Thowed.

Later that night I got to see some more grime. These cats - The Grime All Stars - Bruza, Plastikman, JME, Skepta, Lady Fury and more - all hit the stage at 2:45 a.m. Well, they ripped it but in the 2500 seat hall, there were maybe 50 people.


Bruza

Which I mean is to be expected, it was almost 3 am and they were just going on. Not their fault it was the time that they were scheduled.



But um, I have to speak on something. Listen y'all, I know full well that these cats were not in the best of spirits having just performed at a huge festival in front of such a small crowd. They really gave it their all, but after the show I went back to try and meet all of them. You probably know that I am like one of 10 people in the US who plays grime music in a public forum ever. You also know that I am obssessed with the sound and have been down for quite a while. I'll extend my hand and help any of these people get over here. But I'ma say it right now, these cats don't know what they are doing.


Bruza, Lady Fury

Outside of Dizzee Rascal and Lady Sovereign, the grime cats really do not know how to do it man. Musically they are top notch, breaking new ground and forging new sounds. Business wise, they have no chance in hell. Like Kano, ultra talented, lyrical, attractive, complete package type of guy. Try to get a call back from his management if you are anybody but Fader or Vice. Impossible. Try to book him, he wants a grip of money to come to a city where 3 people know about him and one of those three people is really motivated and wants to break him. This is from experience here. I want to break this sound in the US but it's impossible.

Anyway I say all this because after the show I went to meet these cats. I went up to all of them. Plastikman was cool and he gave me a CD but was kind of short. The rest of them barely said hello. I walked up to all of them and said "Hey what's up I'm Matt Sonzala from Texas and I really love your shit. I'm so happy I finally got to see you tonight."

Yo for real, every one of them shined me. Motherfucker I don't care if you are pissed. If someone is reaching out to you and complimenting your art at least say hello and shake hands. Don't just nod and walk off like you are... man don't get me started but I have to say it, these dudes showed me what I already knew man. They got all the talent in the world but the biz ain't there. I heard it from a lot of people before.

I have played Bruza a lot on my radio show. I tried to tell him that, but he was just not interested. He was just like "Yeah mate great." And walked off. Sorry bro, I'm a fan and will remain a fan, but shit man. You need some lessons in respecting your fans. All y'all. Cuz I was wide fuckin' open and you killed my high.


Here's more photos of these cats cuz I love them. I just can't hate. Just annoyed man.


JME

For what it's worth, a lot of these Texas jotos don't know how to act either.




See, I WAS THERE DUDE! Im my Emil style shirt and shit.





The next day Rapid Ric, myself, Slim Thug and PJ went to Amsterdam.

Here's Slim in my second favorite coffe shop, Easy Times. (Grey Area gets #1 slot by affiliation).






I got Ric on a bike when we went to Vondel Park.


This is one of my best friends in Amsterdam, Flavia.


She told me about 20 times how fat I am now. Which is evidenced by this fat, blaoted, stoned photo.

Then Bun B arrived and we went to 3 Voor 12 for the radio show with Job de Wit and crew. Kees de Koning wasn;t able to make it.








Know'm saying when I say you can roll weed right there on the table while doing an interview at the biggest radio station in the Netherlands?


This is another one of my best friends in Amsterdam. Arend and I worked together at the Knitting Factory when I was there and we kicked it hard every day and night.


Bun B watching Ric do his set after his interview. You can download and stream the whole thing at www.3voor12.nl


Bun and the 3fm Crew


DJ Waxx Fiend!

Then the next day it was back to Norway. I said to myself if I am gonna be in Norway I gotta see some metal, and I did. This is ENSLAVED!








Here's Bun and crew walking to the venue.


Bun doing a TV interview with Mona B before the show.


Mathias of Kingsize Magazine and crew.


Styles P of the Lox opened up for Bun B.


And Amanda Blank, Low Budget and Aaron LaCrate went afterwards. Low Budget DJed for Bun.


And Bun motherfucking ripped it. He had no idea that shit was gonna be so live out there I don't think. He was actually seeming a little nervous. Not nervous, but more like thinking "What am I about to step into." 2500 people who knew every word and got crunk as fuck is what he stepped into.




Bun B and his cousin Low B.






Our girl Auslag captured the whole thing for the TV show. Man I can't wait to see this shit.










Whatchal know bout International Red's crowd rocking skills?


He killed it too!


They know what that Trill about.


This dude, like manay of us at this point, had had enough.


Jeanette held up though. She didn't fall asleep in no box. Seen here with friend Cas.


Junn is a dope photographer who brought us hash and her boyfriend filme dthe show for us so um yeah just wait for that HoustonSoReal on the road DVD.


Terry cloth making it's rounds on the festival circuit I guess., I ain't mad at that.


Chunk up the Duece for the Souf and da Nawf, and then once you do that you knock em knock em doe's dine. Show yo surround. Good night my good pint sized Scandanavian compadres.

OK so not the best wrap up I know but I just looked at the clock and I am almost late for Damage Control. Maybe I'll do a lil edit tomorrow. Enjoy this and leave a comment or 10.

Thanks to everyone who's hand I shook in the past 10 days.